Communication at Akeela | Beyond Akeela

Family Communication with Beyond Akeela

We believe strongly in partnership and clear lines of communication with families, as we recognize you are entrusting us with your teen’s well-being and development. We have two goals for communicating with you:

Give you a strong understanding of how your teen is doing in our community, and what we’re doing to support their success.
Keep you in the loop on what’s happening at camp. Whether it’s about our regular program or a unique/fun story from the day, we want to share the magic of Beyond Akeela with you.

The Beyond Akeela Directors and Head Advisors will be your primary points of contact during the session.

Head Advisor
Head Advisors are members of our leadership team and have years of experience supporting neurodivergent teens and their families. Your teen will have a Head Advisor who supports the staff and teens within your teen’s cohort. The Head Advisor will be your main point of contact for communication regarding your teen’s progress at Beyond Akeela. You can expect to hear from them on the following schedule:

Roughly a week before camp starts to introduce themselves and invite a pre-camp conversation
A few days after camp begins to briefly let you know how your teen is settling in
One week into camp with an update on your teen’s progress at camp
Just prior to camp ending with a final update on their Beyond Akeela experience
As needed in between to discuss anything pertinent to your teen’s experience
After camp, they will draft a report summarizing your teen’s experience, touching on their social interactions, executive function, and self-advocacy skills in our environment.

Camp Directors
Camp Directors, Kevin & Kristin, will communicate with you regarding operational and broader events happening at camp. As we are a small community, we may be in touch with you about your teen’s experience at Beyond Akeela if we have been working with them on something at camp. We are always available throughout the summer should you have any questions or concerns that you’d like to talk with us about.

Daily News & Photos
In addition to our communication about your teen’s experience at Beyond Akeela, every day of camp we will post photos from the day along with a brief blog summarizing the days events. These can all be accessed in Campanion or the Family Portal. We will also post images and videos from camp on our social media accounts. If you DO NOT want your teen included in a picture posted on social media, please let us know.

We do our best to get photos of everyone at camp every day, but please keep in mind this will be more challenging on trip days and other days involving travel away from camp.

Family Communication with Teens at Camp

E-mail
Teens will be able to communicate with you through their personal email account, or a generic email account we’ve setup for all campers to use during the session. Teens will have computer access for emailing during free time at camp, typically during the late afternoon and evening.

We encourage your family to discuss how often you and your teen expect to hear from each other via email over the summer. This helps mitigate any undue stress on parents and teens over the summer regarding emails. While families are used to daily communication at home, given the nature of our program, we don’t suggest that you set an expectation for daily emails. Daily emails can take teens away from meaningful social experiences at free time, and some days access to email is limited as a result of trips or evening outings.

Camper Phone Calls
Families who choose to do so may coordinate with their teens Head Advisor to schedule a brief phone call with their teen. We ask that you wait approximately 5 days after the start of the camp session. This time allows teens to acclimate to Beyond Akeela before calling home, which we find makes calls better for everyone involved! The call will be roughly 15 minutes. Parents/guardians who live in separate households can schedule separate calls if they prefer.

Camper Mail
Should you need to mail anything to your camper, please address all mail as follows:

Curry College
C/O Camper Name/Beyond Akeela
1071 Blue Hill Drive
Milton, MA 02186